As a country with great marine power, China gets a lot of attention for its operation status of our marine economy. The State Oceanic Administration held a meeting on September 27 and issued China Marine Economy Development Report 2016. According to preliminary accounting, the overall marine economy of China is in good operation status in 2015, achieving gross ocean production of RMB 6466.9 billion yuan which accounts for 9.4 percent of gross domestic product. The marine economic featured with improved development quality and increased form diversity has become an important leading power in the national economic development. While it should be noted that presently partial ocean industries have had structural overcapacity and problems of unbalance, discordance and unsustainability in marine economy development are still outstanding. It is necessary to speed up transformation, innovation and development.

"The aggregate of marine economy in China grew stably under the trend of increasing downward pressure of overall home and abroad economy in 2015." Wang Bin, deputy director of the general office of State Oceanic Administration, said that China's gross ocean production has reached RMB 6466.9 billion yuan and the actual incremental quantity was still considerable in 2015; the comparable growth of 7.0 percent keeps a development trend a little more than national economic growth in the corresponding period while it presents slowdown trend compared with former years. "The marine economy is more sensitive to fluctuation of international economy due to influence from the downward trend of domestic and overseas economy together with features of marine economy as openness and export-oriented degree," explained Wang Bin.

"Although the growth declines to some extent, the development quality and benefit of marine economy is increasing and the development pattern is evolving into the stage of more advanced form, more complex labor division and more rational structure. The marine economy has become an important leading power for the national economic development," considered He Guangshun, director of National Marine Information Center.

"Benefiting from the market demand growth in emerging service industry, the marine tertiary industry production value in 2015 rose 1.4 percentage points on an annual basis, complying with the macroscopic anticipation of national industrial structure adjustment." Wang Bin said that influenced by overall descending of domestic manufacturing industry and affected by the upstream-downstream industries, the proportion of marine secondary industry declined 1.4 percentage points last year. In 2015, the proportion of three marine industries in China has reached 5.1:42.5:52.4, making the structure of "tertiary, secondary and primary industries" more optimized. In addition, the contribution rate of marine science to marine economy has reached 60 percent.

"After the development in the 12th Five-year Plan period, China's marine economy has accomplished basically the main index proposed by The 12th Five Year Plan of National Marine Economy Development and has established a significant foundation for advanced development in the eastern coastal region," expressed He Guangshun.

Insiders also express that marine economy development is confronting with the situation of worry in happiness. "At present, the issues of structure overcapacity in partial marine industries shall be confronted directly," said Fang Jianmeng, deputy director of State Oceanic Administration.

The overcapacity in marine shipping industry is the most obvious. Although China's marine shipping industry has overcome the difficulties such as continuous depression in the shipping market and serious overcapacity of global shipbuilding industry and realized stable growth in 2015, the problems of difficulty in order receiving, ship delivery, profit and financing still exist under the deep-seated influence of international financial crisis. The obvious declining of economic benefit and sharp decreasing of new order and held order quantity result in more serious situation in production and operation.

The marine engineering equipment manufacturing industry is also not optimistic. Influenced by the falling price of global oil and reduced demand for marine exploration and development, China's marine equipment production has dramatically reduced. New orders in 2015 accounted for 30.9 percent of global market shares, declining by 75.5 percent in amount on year-on-year basis.

Meanwhile, the crowded gathering of heavy chemical industry in coastal region has intensified the pressure on marine resource environment. As shown by relevant data, the land-to-sea pollutants in China stay at a high level. The rate of qualified discharge from the land-to-sea drain outlets in 2015 is still lower and the 88 percent of the sea water quality near the drain outlets does not meet the environmental quality requirement of the marine functional zone they locate. "In addition, many flaws such as confused layout, flourish everywhere and lack of overall planning exist in coastal heavy chemical industry regions." As indicated in China Marine Economy Development Report 2016, such an intensive-distributed layout of heavy chemical industry along coastline is in opposite to the principle of "concentrated layout and centrally governing" executed for heavy chemical industry internationally. It not only damages marine resource and ecological environment, but also increases hidden danger in safety production.

In addition, the continuous healthy development of marine economy in China is still restricted by many factors such as the outstanding issues of unbalance, discordance and unsustainability in marine economy development, the unchanged extensive growth method, the unreasonable industrial structure and layout and the under-improved ability of independent innovation and technical achievement transformation.

"At present, China's marine economy is in profound adjustment period and confronting with problems of great pressure on structural adjustment and difficulty in sustaining the mode of pulling the marine economy by investment and export." He Guangshun said that in 13th Five-year Plan period, the State Oceanic Administration will revitalize the marine stock resource, avoid repeated construction and cutthroat competition among regions and completely eradicate excessive consumption and waste of marine resource through planning and guiding. Meanwhile, it will further speed up eliminating the backward productivity in traditional industries such as marine ship industry and marine salt industry, boosts the strategy of "going out" in marine industry and promotes the quality and efficiency improvement of marine economy.

"In 13th Five-year Plan period, the State Oceanic Administration will allocate the marine resources scientifically, further solve the problems such as unreasonable marine industrial structure and homogenized regional distribution, explore financing mode and service method of marine economy, promote the development model innovation in "ocean + Internet" and "ocean + big data" to realize the share of resource, technology and information, and establish a high-tech marine industry system that adapted to demand with senior level," expressed Fang Jianmeng.